Sept. 28
Hmm… so there is one bill that I can not pay at the local convenience store… the dreaded gas bill. For this I seem to have to go my bank (which closes at 3 pm… 15 minutes before I can leave work), fill out a mountain of paperwork. Pay in cash. Wait for the bank teller to do her thing. Then wait a little longer. Then I receive my change, a billion pieces of paper, some of which are receipts, some of which are flyers, and a free gift for using my bank. That time I got a sponge. But when I opened my bank account I got some really awesome too small to use anywhere garbage bags. Oh and I got some kleenex another time. That was pretty sweet, cause I actually could use those. So, that’s the part of the bank I don’t like. The part I do like is that everybody greets you when you come in and says goodbye when you leave… in like chorus. Maybe they practice. Bankers in Canada better be writing this down.
Umm… so, this was my first week in Japan where I’ve been sick. And I still am. It’s the stupidest, smallest cold ever and it refuses to leave. At first it was really depressing to be out of my country and sick. But, then people figured it out and suddenly there’s a gigantic bag of fruit hanging from my doorknob. I’m not even sure where they found it all, I haven’t seen some of it in the grocery store. I’m not even sure what two particular items are. Anyways, last night I gorged myself on waffles, oranges and grapes. I opened up one of my last bottles of Canadian maple syrup for my own use…. I honestly prefer Aunt Jemima, but it was really good. Oh, a lady from my English conversation class made the waffles, she used to live in America and brought a waffle iron over with her when she came back. Smart girl. They were like, mini waffles, but they tasted identical to the big ones.
Unfortunately, I guess my sickness means that I have very little of interest to tell you about this time… but! Tomorrow! I might buy a car!! Please stay tuned for more information on this new thought!
Thing I miss the most about Canada today: Echinaea …that’s probably spelled wrong.
Thing I love most about Japan today: Banana juice. If I’m reading the box right, I think it’s only 1% banana, but it tastes like a delicious milkshake where all the ice cream melted already.
Proof that I intend to update more often now
Sept. 24
Hey! So this is my first regular posting… enjoy how much smaller it is!
On Friday I actually left school at the earliest time I’m allowed and took off to Furukawa with Will. There we enjoyed that excellent cheese okonomiyaki from that obscure shop that only the locals know. I gave the owner a Canadian 10 dollar bill to put up on his wall (he keeps bills from around the world there, and Canada was missing). Then we jumped a bus to Takayama…. where we were shocked by how dead the city was on a long weekend! Maybe everyone left town? It was odd, but we met up with some other JETs and their friends who were having a farewell party for an Irish dude named Donal. The party invovled two bars and a trip to a really awesome karaoke place, where we got a huge room and went nuts. Absolutely no voice left by the end of the night! The 3 of us took a cab back up to Furukawa, where we stayed at Greg’s for the night.
Saturday, Will and I drove back to Kamioka, had lunch at my favorite restaurant (it’s called Teju…. i think). I took a nap and then jumped the next bus back to Furukawa for the Fox festival! I wish my pictures of this thing would’ve turned out better, but I did take them with my phone at night… so I’m not sure what I expected. George and Erin (a Canadian JET in Takayama) came up for the festival too. Greg and I kept running into our students, who are always a bit strange to see out of uniform. Many High 5s were distributed. The fox festival involved a parade through town at dusk, and then a giant stage show with dancing and awesome music… and of course festival food and drink. After the festival was over the performers served free sake to everyone. Greg had the guts to go ask for his picture taken with the Fox King and Queen?… although he really just wanted it to be taken with the Queen. I took the shot… and then was shocked to find that everyone else in the crowd were now taking pictures too…. of the crazy gaijin with the Fox couple. Some random lady than pushed me up onto the stage to have my picture taken with them too…. again, suddenly other cameras appeared… a bunch of people out there have better pictures of me with the Fox couple than I do! After the festival we went to one bar, than another, than back to the first. Of course, stuff was bought for us and given to us for free. Some guy at the last bar paid Greg and my entire tab!
Sunday, I had some excellent pizza at a little restaurant in Furukawa before taking the bus back up to Kamioka. I made a trip to the grocery store, which is always an epic and carefully planned event where I end up back at my apartment covered in sweat from the walk back up the mountain. Fun. In the evening Will and I grabbed a beer from the Timely and sat by the river. He took off because he was ready for bed and the town seemed even more dead than usual, but I decided to try and go for a walk around the main area of town. Just outside of El Sol, a random dude (his name is Takuo) suddenly started speaking to me in English. He convinced me to go into El Sol with him for a beer…. and I was shocked to find the bar completely packed! Turns out his baseball team just won their game tonight and they were all celebrating… I got a seat at a table with my new friends and… became really aquianted with a few people who live in my town who aren’t teachers and are somewhat close to me in age (varying between 27 and 31). One chick there (named Rikako) had spent 4 years in the UK and was obviously dying to practice her English. I invited her to my classes on Wed. They asked me if I had a girlfriend, and when they found the answer was negative, they introduced me to an INCREDIBLY gorgeous girl. I was floored! …and then they told me her age… also 31. Japanese people have found some fountain of youth, so that they look like they’re in their 20s until they turn 40!! Anyways, turns out a lot of them play basketball too…. and so we’re all going to play together some time yet. Cell numbers were exchanged… and then they paid for my beer. I didn’t get to stop them, they did it without asking and I only found out when I tried to pay my tab. Awesome.
Monday was a holiday…. is a holiday. I sat on the internet and managed to actually catch Mark, Kurt and Haomo on msn. I spent most of the day doing odd jobs around the house like laundry, except for a short trip to the conveince store to pay a phone bill. I caught a pair of my students on a date on the way there and back, and the guy was so embarrased he hid his head under a t-shirt the first time…. but I caught him on the way back! I couldn’t figure out why he was embarrased, the girl he was with is one of the sweetest and nicest (alright, and cutest) girls in my classes. There’s something about Japanese culture I’m missing here…. but I’ve got lots of time to figure it out yet.
Tomorrow I have to administer two exams, followed by an enormous amount of marking! And then!! I’m going to start pushing for getting a car!!
Thing I miss most about Canada today: people being on msn at the same time as me
Thing I love most about Japan today: I can pay my bills at my local convience store! How convient! It takes seconds!
Japan… so far.
Aug 9, 7:00 am. How do I know its 7 am? Because my town has an alarm that goes off to wake me up then! Apparently this is common in small towns with factories, since it prevents workers from sleeping in. Another bell (well, it sounds more like a giant ringtone) goes off at 5 pm so that workers know they can go home.
Yesterday I arrived at Kamioka-cho and it is beautiful! I briefly saw the school, met a few teachers and then started to move into my apartment. Its much bigger than I expected. Definitely room for guests (if they still want to show up!). The Japanese style toilet is a bit odd… but I guess I’ll just get used to it…
4:20 pm. Another busy day… and its not over yet! Today I filled out the forms for my alien (or gaijin) card. Well, Suzuki-sensei filled it out for me.. I just had to sign a couple of times and use my stamp. OH! I have a stamp that has my name in Kanji!! I’m not sure if it’s my first name or my last or both… but the symbols are for fish and lotus. Very cool! Oh, and they have ayu fishing IN my town!! I watched a guy doing it while I was waiting for my lunch to be made… in about 10 minutes he caught like4 or 5 fish!! I can’t get a license until I get my gai-jin card…. but I am soooo trying it! Japanese fishing poles are way longer than our Canadian equivalents! They’re at least 15 feet long… if not more. I’m not sure how they control them… but apparently you need an ayu fish to catch ayu fish… because they fight each other or something. I’ll be sure to find out more yet and explain it, if only for Matt’s sake.
I also met my principle (here-after referred to as kocho-sensei) and my kyoto-sensei (vice principle), and about every other teacher. I can barely remember any names… but I got invited to an exhibition that the art teacher is having next week. Also I’ve got my next orientation next week. My oriental-tation that teaches me not to do anything occident-ally wrong.
The biggest deal about today though is that I met my predecessor, Thomas, who is a very cool guy! He showed me a bunch of stuff in the apartment and told me what to expect over a few beers. Also, he bought me some Pale Ale from Takayama (the nearest city)!! Apparently its expensive… but I loved it! ( Ales are hard to find in Japan…. all the beers are lagers and pilsners ) So I’ll have to pick some more of it up when I visit Takayama.
Also I found out that there’s another JET in Kamioka-cho. I don’t know his name yet, but I heard he’s as tall as me and from North Carolina. All my bags have been reunited with me also, so I’ll finally be able to wear some different shirts… I had to do a load of laundry last night just to get some more black socks! (Also Japanese washers are… different). Attempt #1 at ironing was also deemed mildly successful, since it got rid of most of my wrinkles.
I’m writing all of this without an internet connection on notepad so that I can quickly dump it off when I get to school (so I can spend my time working), so I beg you stay with me if I haven’t e-mailed or facebooked you yet after you wrote to me. Hopefully within a month I’ll have internet and be back in the groove. For now, I have to move on to supper and unpacking so I can go to the store and buy some things (and discover my town!).
8:45 pm Operation discover town had only a 50% success rate. I learned how to get to my school by walking, which was priority one, but failed to walk down the mountain to the shop to buy some more groceries. Night hits a lot quicker here than it does in Manitoba. First, there’s no daylight savings. Second, the mountains block out sunlight!!
However, this is probably a good thing since it gives me some time to actually go into detail about the Tokyo orientation.
DAY ONE: Alright, I wake up at 4:50 so I can make it to the airport by 6, so that I can get a seat in the emergency row (which has more leg room). I arrive and actually do manage to get a reserved seat, and I spent some time eating a Tim Horton’s breakfast and saying goodbye to the folks. Our flight to Vancouver was a measly 3 hours. The in-flight movie was Shrek 3… its very very awful. I got the exit row, but not the seat with the legroom! Apparently I should have specified that I wanted that row for the extra room… but it wasn’t a big deal. It was the short flight, and the standard leg room was actually okay. 4 hours of waiting later we board a second plane and ‘enjoy’ a 9 and a half hour flight to Narita airport (outskirts of Tokyo). Of course I got exit row, of course it wasn’t the good seat. I swear these seats were actually smaller than the first plane too. Follow that up with some serious waiting in lines. But, finally we clear security and suddenly the welcome wagon hits us. JETs in blue t-shirts stand basically 10 feet apart pointing which way we need to go as we wander out of the airport to the bus… which I believe was only a one hour drive. One of our checked bags went off to our prefectures, the other got thrown under the bus. We’re told to make sure everything we need is in the one on the bus since we won’t see the other for possibly a week. And so we arrive at Keio Plaza Hotel…
At Keio we get assigned our rooms… and to my shock I get bunked with two other Winnipegs! Mike and Joel! Now the high life began! It was about 6 pm when we arrived at the Hotel, and by 7 or 8 about eight of us Winnipeg JETs had found each other and decided to explore Tokyo for a place to eat. Tokyo looked absolutely amazing! It was a Sunday, so it was buzzing with what was left of the weekend. We wandered, memorized by all the lights surrounding us, until we stumbled upon a little restaurant named Miami Garden. Amazing Italian food! I had a pasta dish that involved a creamy sauce with pumpkin added to it and bits of ham… hands down the best pasta I’ve ever had! Unfortunately the portion wasn’t huge… We’ll say they valued quality over quantity. I tried some of someone else’s pizza…. and it was also good. Oh, and by the way, tipping is considered RUDE in Japan!! (I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!) Afterwards we walked across the ’street’ (which was filled with pedestrian traffic) to a conbini (convenience store). There we each chose a can of beer and we continued exploring Tokyo while drinking them (not illegal in Japan (though we found out later that it is actually also rude)). We found Times Square (the OTHER times square!) and also a major subway station where there were street performers… who were also amazing! One dude was freaking out on a 5 string bass, and there was a chick playing guitar and singing. The cool part about all this was that the performers didn’t want you to give them money… they wanted you to buy their CDs! Eventually we stumbled back upon our hotel and went to bed… that was at about 11 pm Tokyo time. Over the course of that day I ate 2 breakfasts, 3 lunches, and 2 suppers…. and went to bed feeling like I was getting hungry again.
DAY 2 in Tokyo: Woke up at 5 am… unable to go back to sleep. At 6:30ish I finally gave up and started the day. Jet lag is weird. The Hotel breakfast was good, if a little strange. One of the items on the buffet was french fries. After a morning of ceremonies in the main ballroom (and meeting some of the people going to the same prefecture as you) it was time for lunch… which was stranger. The lunch included something that looked like beef, but was made from beans… and tasted… okay. Needless to say, I didn’t exactly fill up. The Afternoon was filled with workshops, which a lot of JETs decided to skip so they could nap. Obviously I did not. Supper was a gigantic buffet in the main ball room, and included some awesome food… although I’m not really sure what it was I was eating always. After that, Mike, Terrina, Allie, and I went out for Karaoke! It was a lot of fun!! We picked up some more beers afterwards and returned to our Hotel room where Joel and Ian where watching Zoolander. The room quickly filled with more JETs… but everyone left right after the movie to go to bed. Jet lag is weird.
DAY 3 in Tokyo: Woke up at 5:30… which is really too bad. Breakfast, Workshops (on 43rd floor of the Hotel… amazing view!!) , Lunch, Workshops. Then I had to pack up my bag and send it to my prefecture, leaving myself with only one set of clean clothes for the next day. For supper I went out to a sushi place with Brenda and Carol. The head chef was cooking right in front of us, so he kept making “special” dishes for us to try. Something called the Canadian roll was really good! And his eel was fantastic! But the fatty tuna was very very chewy. After supper we wandered to the train station to try and buy a ticket… but got tired of waiting in line in the heat (did I mention it was like 35 and humid during the entire orientation?). Finally we broke down and got a taxi to what Brenda described as “that intersection in Tokyo that’s in all the movies”. When we arrived I found out why they always film it. Literally a sea of people cross it in every direction everytime the “walk” sign glows. Think of like seeing the entire population of Morden walking across an intersection… now, imagine that happening again only a minute later…. and then again. It really was incredible! We wandered around this area for awhile and finally stopped in at some specialty restaurant where Brenda and Carol tried some of the food. I was content to just have a cold beer… it was soooo hot! We then wandered back to that popular intersection which was still just as popular. A quick taxi ride later we were back at the Hotel. I decided to call it a night then even though it was only like 9 or 10ish. I had these strange sleepy fits throughout the afternoon that day and assumed that going to bed early was the answer. It also gave me a chance to say goodbye to Mike, who had to leave for his prefecture at 5:30 the next morning. I think he woke up at like 4:45 or something ridiculous like that… who gets up that early!? By the way Mike, I’ve got a belt that you left behind.
Day 4 in Tokyo: Woke up around 6ish and went for breakfast at 7. Just before I left the room the alarm clock went off for Joel. I let it run for a minute…. then shut it off. I shouted at him to get up and he mumbled something and rolled over…. assuming that he knew what he was doing I went downstairs for breakfast. I went back to the room at 7:45 to find Joel still sleeping. I ask him, “aren’t you leaving for you prefecture at 8?” No answer. I start shouting at him… and after about 2 minutes of this he finally comes around asks me what time it was…. and repacks his carry-on faster than I’ve ever seen anyone before. The Gifu group met at 8:30, and at 9 we took a bus to the shinkansen (bullet train) station. THAT was cool. After getting off the train we all scattered as various teachers from our various schools picked up their JETs and drove them off. My particular teacher was an incredibly nice guy name Suzuki-sensei. We got lunch at some restaurant and journeyed up to Kamaioka-cho. We talked along the way, and I was excited to hear that in the mountains around Kamioka are monkeys! Apparently I’ll see them in the fall, since they like to sun themselves on the cliffs by the roads during that season. This brings me back to my first post of the day… which is a good thing because I need some seriously sleep so I can do the half hour hike up to my highschool early tomorrow morning. I tried it out today during my wanders and it is gorgeous.
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Couches. I really wish my place at least had a lay-z-boy or something….
Thing I love most about Japan today: The AMAZING view from my balcony!! I heart mountains!
August 11, 11:20 am.
Yesterday was my first real day at work. Kinda. I basically just had to be there and then did whatever I wanted to. Mostly that just meant I studied Japanese, but I also came up with a lesson plan for the first week of school for one of the classes I teach with Suzuki-sensei. Also I saw my schedule, and I have more prep time than actual teaching time. Odd, but awesome. After work I met the other JET in Kamioka. He’s a dude named Will, also 22, and totally awesome. He works at the Junior High and has amazing Japanese already. Apparently he basically needed to since less people speak English at the Junior High. Also, he’s already got a car and a cellphone! (sidenote: when I called his JR. High to talk to him earlier that day, I was of course put on hold until he picked up the phone. The music they had playing? “What Child is This?” Just no idea that that’s a Christmas song.) He took me to my first trip to the grocery store and then we went to the nearby town of Furukawa. It’s a little bigger than Kamioka, and has 4 JETs living there. We met up with one of them, a guy named Greg (who also is way better than me at Japanese), and went out for supper at this awesome little restaurant…. and it only cost 5 bucks! I had this awesome strange dish, which was essentially a bunch of meat and vegetables wrapped in greasy pancake. It was really good! The meat in it was either fish or chicken… but also possibly some combination of those two. From there we went to a bar/restaurant where we got some soup and a beer. Then we finally found the bar that Greg had gone to before. The bartender there was hilarious! Also, the bartender found out that it was Will’s birthday and gave us free watermelon, which is apparently expensive here. The bar was really small, maybe only enough room for about a dozen people on the main floor (there was an upstairs which we didn’t see). People came and went, one dude bought us a round of beer after he got to practice his English on us. Some chicks had their picture taken with us. Some other chicks bought us a strange milk-like drink which you drink like a shot. Everyone was so excited to see us in their local watering hole! Surprisingly, I haven’t had any sake since I’ve come here. Japan rocks! Time for lunch.
11pm. Inherited my first friend today. A chick who used to be a friend of Thomas’ ran into me at the grocery store and now she’s mine I guess. One of the AJETs in Tokyo had referred to people like her as gai-jin (foreigner) groupies. Got lost on the way home from the grocery store… turned my hour long walk into an hour and a half. However, at least I found a great new drink because of it. I was so hot during the walk I grabbed a drink from a vending machine. I chose “Aquarius” because it sounded super-refreshing… and it actually was! It’s just flavored water, but its really good. Also passed by a bar called “the Eagle”. I think its the closest bar to me… I’ll have to check it out yet.
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Diversity in beer. Ales are really hard to find here.
Thing I love most about Japan today: How excited everyone is to see you!
Aug. 12, 10 pm. Just returned from Takayama, the major city in the area. Apparently, in terms of land size its the biggest city in Japan. Will and I drove into it and met with a bunch of the other JETs in the Hida region (which includes but is not limited to Hida-shi, where Kamioka-cho is (shi means city, cho is like an area in a city, please try to keep up)). Also found out I have to wear a tie to my prefecture orientation next week… which is really unfortunate because its gonna be hot. But at least no suit jacket.
More interestingly I also spent the afternoon wandering around Kamioka some more. Today I took a little mountain path beside the river and also checked out the shrine (or is it a temple?). I think I saw a bell there, so I’m going to try to make sure I can pull it on New Year’s. The river is really shallow, so you can see the fish swimming by. Very cool. Also I saw a lot of Will’s apartment. I didn’t realize you could have a couch on a Tatami mat, but now that I know this… it’s time to go couch shopping! I’m tired of sitting on a pillow all day long. Other than that, nothing much interesting to say…. back to work tomorrow.
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Miracle Whip
Thing I love most about Japan today: That amazing shrine (or temple?) 10 minutes from my apartment!
Aug. 13, 9 pm. Let no one question Japanese hospitality! If any nation knows how to make a person feel at ease its definitely them! Today was suppose to be a major day for explore-Kamioka, involving a trip to a restaurant that serves Ayu, buying a couch, checking out an art exhibit and what is apparently the cool bar (El Sole). I did one of these things. If you guessed buying a couch, than you could predict what was going to happen to me better than I! First, I realized when I left the house that I probably was going to miss the exhibit today (its on all week) because I had left too late. No sweat. Whilst on the way to the area of town that had the rest of these goals in them I was stopped by an old lady. This is not particularly unusual since people stop me all the time to practice their English or test my Japanese. This time it certainly fell to the latter. I understood very very little about what she said, except for something about Italy. I told her I was Canadian and she starts waving me to follow her. I comply, not really sure what’s going on, and we walk two houses over to where she’s living. Two dogs immediately freak out and attack me… (one of which was a miniature schnauzer!). While I let the dogs smell my hand so that they’ll stop their brutal assault of sheer noise, the old lady has a quick conversation with a middle aged woman. The woman introduces her self Keiko-san and apoligizes for the dogs. She notices that I’m sweating (like everybody else in this heat wave) and invites me in for some ice cream. At first I’m a little unsure, but she seemed so genuinely kind that I couldn’t really refuse. Plus, it was really really hot, and ice cream sounded absolutely amazing. So I join her for ice cream (which was really more like a frozen yogurt type thing (very delicious!)) and she in half-Japanese half-English explains that she’s done some traveling and something about Germany… then she gives me a bunch of pictures of a dude in Germany… who she knows? Sponsored? I can’t quite gather it all. Anyways, once I’m done I ask her about where the furniture shop is, thinking that its a good way out. Well, she walks me over to it and helps me buy a couch… but to my surprise she doesn’t let me go afterwards! She invites me in for supper, I invite her out for supper to the restaurant I wanted to go to, she claims that its okay…. but she really starts pushing for me to go to her place for supper. I refuse again and again, finally giving in. Next is a trip to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for the special meal being made for the gaijin. I try to pay for the groceries, but am stopped again. Anyways, long story short, I ended up spending a lot of my evening at this woman’s house… then I ate supper with her family (her son is the same age as me) and then she got the mover to pick me up to bring me to my apartment when he brings the couch. Then it turns out the mover is their friend, and he gives me a discount on the couch!! Also, he and Keiko’s husband like fishing and offer to take me as soon as I can get a license! Amazing! Not only did I get to see the inside of a Japanese house (it had a shrine to the old lady’s husband which I watched her clean… so much devotion!!), and get a home cooked Japanese meal but I also got some guys to teach me how to fish for ayu!! Oh and she said I can come back for supper EVERYDAY!! Obviously I’m not going to, but I told her I’d be back next week. So awesome!! And her son seems like a really cool guy, who I think I’m going to try to convince to go to El Sol with me sometime on the weekend. This country is amazing! Also, having a couch is amazing. I heart couch.
It might only be three more weeks until I have internet…. maybe.
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Being able to read things to figure them out.
Thing I love most about Japan today: Keiko and her family!
Aug. 14, 11:45 pm. It’s late so this will be quick. Today was a festival in our little town. The called it the Bonodori, which is a Buddhist festival for the dead. Will and I went out for Chinese food and then wandered the streets which were shut down for the festival. There were lots of little food stands, fireworks, and even a stage where bands played. Very cool. Also, lots and lots of girls in kimonos. Also cool. Tomorrow I go to school and then to Takayama to stay at my supervisor’s place. The next day is an orientation, followed by another day of orientation and a trip back to Furukawa to stay at Greg’s. Then back home by Saturday…. so I’ll probably write my next post then…
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Knowing what’s going on!
Thing I love most about Japan today: Kimono girls!
August 18 11:00 am.
Hida is awesome. On the 15th, I went to Takayama with my supervisor and he showed me a bunch of the touristy stuff. While I was at his place a monk showed up to do a Buddhist ritual with his family because it was O-bon. I didn’t get to see it, but i could hear it going on above me. We went out for supper and to a bar afterwards. It was apparently the hottest day in Japanese history. The hottest town recorded a peak temperature of 40.1 Celsius… a new record!
The next day I took a train to Gifu city with a bunch of the other JETs. During the train ride Nancy told a story that was really the highlight of the whole Gifu orientation. She was in the handicap stall and couldn’t figure out how to make her toilet flush. So she just pushed a button that said “push” on it in kanji and suddenly an alarm went off and the door swung wide open. A man in a business suit immediately showed up in her stall. Her response was to say nothing and just run away as fast as she could. The moral was that if ever you’re in a Japanese washroom, be very careful what button you push! After the train we took a bus to the building we were staying at for the Gifu orientation, but we got off the bus early and had to walk for about 15 minutes in the scorching heat. The worse part was that we all were dressed in casual formal…. so no shorts. The actual orientation was okay, met a bunch more JETs. There was also free sake and beer over supper. Alcohol is really the oil that keeps the gears turning in Japan! Oh, the supper also included Ayu! It’s served to you whole and you just don’t eat the fins. It was actually really good… although I didn’t eat the head.
The day after was more orientation, and more sweating in a disturbingly hot heat. For lunch we went to a nice Indian restaurant, apparently a difficult thing to find around our area. Then Greg and I took the train back up to Furukawa. I think I could figure out the train system myself now. We wandered Furukawa, checked out the old streets and some temples…. it’s a beautiful town! Then we went to this amazing restaurant, met up with some more JETs and went to one bar and then another (this was the same one as last time, with the awesome bartender). We promised to come back 2 weeks from now.
In the morning I finally had to fly solo using public transit… which was luckily really easy. I took a bus back to Kamioka, and was pleased to find that it drops me off very close to my house… thus making trips to Furukawa 100 times easier than I expected. When I got home I found a note waiting for me which had a request on it for me to teach an English adult education class on Wednesdays. …and now it just feels good to sit in front of a fan listening to music. Time for lunch! Afterwards…. exploration!! If I keep going out I’m bound to find El Sol eventually!
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Ketchup bottles that don’t have all the liquid come out first!
Thing I love most about Japan today: That awesome restaurant in Furukawa!
August 19, 8pm. Lucky day today! Jer showed me where El Sol was (although it was the afternoon, so I haven’t gone in yet) and some other restaurants I have to check out. Also, while grocery shopping I met a man named Takashi who runs a kendo class. He took me out for coffee, gave me a ride home with my groceries and invited me to try kendo on Thursday… so my week quickly fills up with regularly scheduled events. He also runs a Japanese sword drawing class which I get to try. I also made myself meals using my stove top for the first time today. The first turned out a little charred (the element heats up waayyy faster than the one in my townhouse or at my parent’s) but the second was a success! Oh, also, yesterday I went to an art show being put on by my school’s art teacher….. she’s really good! It was at the community center, where I found out I could use the internet for about 2 bucks…. unfortunately I had the same problem there that I have with most the school computers… I can’t seem to be able to send e-mails (with the occasional exception being a certain laptop at school)! Hopefully this won’t be a problem once I get my own internet….
Thing I miss most about Canada today: My bed…. or at least a softer futon.
Thing I love most about Japan today: I make a new friend every time I leave the house!
Aug. 26, 2007. I guess it’s been a week since I’ve written about what I’ve been up to. On Monday I went to Keiko-san’s for another supper. This time I met both her sons. Tomorrow I’ll be going back there again with Will.
What else happened? Hmm… I joined the basketball club, I’m like half coach half player…. although they seem to be able to run circles around me. This is probably from a combination of me being out of shape and the high altitude I’m playing at. It makes my lungs scream when I push myself hard…. very strange. I’m also a coach for the girls team. ….I’ve shown them a few new drills so far. The captain of the girls team is the most genki person I’ve met in Japan so far! She’s the shortest member of the team… but she just keeps running and practicing and screaming! She reminds me of Jak! Just unlimited energy! Watching her leave practice at the end of the day was hilarious! Every step she took she muttered “Atsui, Atsui, Atsui” over and over again. (Atsui is Japanese for hot, it had been a very hot day).
I finally went to the bar El Sol (twice actually!). My second time there, (on Friday) I spent 2 and a half hours talking to the bartender (also named Keiko). She’s cute, but probably in her 30s. Essentially this makes her Christmas Cake as far as other Japanese people are concerned. Talking to her gave me another look at Japanese culture from a new angle. She works from 9-5 at a golf course and then from 6-12 (or 1:30 on weekends) at the bar. She has Mondays and every third Sunday off. She apparently sleeps about 5 hours a night. Her brother owns the bar, and needs her help… which is why she works so hard. Family is put ahead of all else. I’m not sure if this emphasizes how important family is to Japanese people or if it shows what un-marriageable women have to put up with. Have I explained Christmas Cake already? It’s a name given to women over 25, because just like Christmas Cake they’re no good after the 25th. Strange? I thought so… Although most of what we talked about was traveling (she’s been like EVERYWHERE! (I assume she traveled when she was young, which is why she became 25 without getting married, I guess)).
Saturday was definitely the most exciting day. A bunch of us Hida JETs went to a river to swim, then to an onsen (which was actually a tonne of fun!) and then to Maze’s fireworks festival. Very cool. The fireworks were really amazing, and there was a taiko drum band that was awesome there. And tonnes of festival food! (very unhealthy, but sooo good). I wish I would have brought my camera. At one point there were a line of Japanese women in yukata (like a kimono) with their cellphones being held up in the air so they could take pictures of the fireworks. It reminded me of something that a speaker had said in Tokyo, “The West has two visions about Japan. One is the land of samurai that the west sees in movies, and the other is an ultra-futuristic gadget-ridden land. The real Japan is somewhere between these two.”
Oh, also on Wednesday I went to my first English conversation group meeting and on Thursday I went to my first Kendo class. Both were fun, and I’m doing the both again this week. The guys at the Kendo class were really amazing, two guys have their seventh down (you can get up to eight downs (it’s like belt levels in other martial arts… but its like impossible to get the eighth) One of them is an 80 year old man who I’m suppose to go to a bar with tonight. He speaks really good English, so it should be interesting. Apparently one JET, several years ago, after 3 years of hard work, managed to get his first down…. and it was such a big deal that there were newspaper articles about it and stuff. The most difficult thing about getting the first down is that you have to write an essay about it…. in Japanese! I’m sure they told me this story to challenge me to try and do the same… we’ll see.
Oh, I also finally got my gaijin card and a bank account. My phone gets connected next week and after that I can call for internet! I might also soon have a cell phone and a car!!!
Thing I miss most about Canada today: The low altitude so I can breath when I run!
Thing I love most about Japan today: Onsen!
Aug. 27, 2007. I need a car!! I was soooo hot when I walked to school today. Luckily, I thought this might happen so I came extra early to cool off. By the time it was time for the morning meeting you ALMOST couldn’t tell I walked to school today. I gave a quick speech at the morning teacher’s meeting which basically amounted to, “Nice to meet you, sorry my Japanese isn’t very good, Kamioka is beautiful, let’s try our best!” It was on the spot Japanese… I felt it went okay, all things considered. Then, I got a little more cool down time because the students had to clean the school. Awesome. I gave some maple cookies to the students that cleaned the teacher’s room and learned a new word from them! I heard the girls repeatedly saying koi, which I thought meant cool… but I looked it up and it either means carp, or romantic love. I was warned of this. I dawned my suit jacket and went to the semester’s opening ceremony. The principle introduced me…. saying almost everything that I had prepared in my speech. Then I gave my little speech in English, then Japanese… to thunderous applause afterwards. They all smiled at how terrible my pronunciation is, but Hayashi-sensei (the school nurse) claimed that because I was trying hard to speak Japanese it inspires them to try hard to speak English. I decided to believe her. After my speech there was another from the principle, then some announcements…. I understood very very little. I just bowed when everybody else did. That last sentence sums up a lot of Japanese experience so far.
After my speech I got some “herro”s from some students in the hallway. I went around the teachers room handing out my omiyage (the cookies) and receiving a couple from some people who went on holiday during the summer. There’s some chocolate and doughy looking thing on my desk right now that is just screaming my name! My first class of the day was canceled because of the ceremony, so I got to just hang around the teacher’s room for an hour while I waited for the third time slot, when my next class was…. when my only class today was.
The first class went well… I think. I got exactly what everybody told me I’d get. Some students were willing to participate, a lot just stared shyly. Most of these smiled and looked bashfully away when my eyes met theirs. Two guys in the front row just talked to each other the entire time. The strange thing was that I had talked to one of the “shy” ones last week and she had been very genki! I guess the classroom setting changes some people. So I gave an introduction, they introduced themselves and asked me questions (shockingly, no impolite ones!) and then we played a game of Jeopardy about my introduction. I gave prizes out to the 5 students with the highest score. One guy was on fire, clearly the class genius. His friend was not far behind. I only remember one name though. Now I sit here waiting for lunch period….. very hungry… with a chocolate spongey looking thing staring me down, and a box of maple cookies clouding my brain…. and my nose. …and I can see the box with the bentos in it across the room. Just delivered.
Oh yeah, last night I went to a ramen shop with my two kendo instructors. Kobayashi-sensei (5th down) and Asamura sensei (7th down… and passed the first exam of 8th down 8 times before failing the second! A record in Japan! So really, he’s like 7 and a half. (every year about 40 people attempt to get the 8th down, 15 pass the first exam and only like 7 pass the second.)) We talked… in English, for a while there. They both speak it very well, Asamura-sensei enters speech contests all the time, and frequently wins. He read me his old speech and requested that I help him correct his new one sometime in the future. I agreed to. He paid for the meal and then we went to Karaoke snack bar. Here, a cute hostess (turns out she’s over 30….!!) served us beer and snacks while we listened to a bunch of drunk businessmen and their wives sing enka songs. I was convinced to sing a verse of Puff the magic dragon with Kobayashi-sensei, as well as “Paint it Black” and “Proud Mary”. I was shocked to find my karaoke stand-by “Takin care of business” was gone! I got applause for my rendition of both, especially Proud Mary… although it was particularly bad. Again Asamura-sensei paid. He is 85 years old! Also he was in the navy in WWII. I’m going to get some stories out of him yet! So, the night ended at the relatively early hour of 9… which was good because I had class today.
1:12 pm. FLASH NEWS! Sponge chocolate cake thing not as good as expected!! Three more pieces of it now stare me down!
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Air conditioning in the classrooms. It was very very hot.
Thing I love most about Japan today: So many choices… let’s go with how excited the students are… even if most of them don’t want to talk!
Aug. 28. I think my phone is suppose to start working today. …however, this great piece of news comes with the fact that I cant seem to access facebook anymore from my school!! How long will this journal be before I finally upload it?
Had two classes today. One class was an introduction class again, and the other was lead by my supervisor so I didn’t really have to prepare. Just show up and talk. I’ve got my last introduction class tomorrow… after that… things should start getting more interesting.
Had basketball practice. During the warm up five highschool girls sat in the doorway to the gym and said “herro” to me every time I looked that way or was close to that area. Stayed a little bit late after practice to help a post player and a shooting guard. While walking home afterwards I was escorted by the alpine ski team for awhile… they seemed shocked to see me walking around. The girls giggled… a lot. More “herro”s, more “bye bye”s. I’m teaching them all to say “see-you” instead. For the rest of my journey home I talked to a guy from the robot club (the best robot club in Japan is at my highschool… they win the national competition every year). At home I ate supper (leftovers), and was surprised to find that I had no commitments for the evening! I played DS for 2 hours while doing my laundry before going to bed… at like 9:30. Oh, and I noticed that most my fellow teachers got home at around 8ish… I wonder if thats everyday thing? They have to be at school at 8:20, though most seem to be there much earlier than that… that’s a 12 hour day… everyday? Tomorrow I’m going to try sleeping in until 6:30…
Aug. 29. Wheels are now in motion! It took me and 2 school clerks to navigate through Yahoo BB’s (my internet provider) website, but soon I will be getting a letter that tells me when I’ll be getting a package that contains a modem I can use… to get internet. …how long will that take? That’s the question.
My last introduction class is today… as well as a little lesson I prepared myself for another class. Will it work? Time will tell!
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Being able to do stuff on my own. Independence.
Thing I love most about Japan today: Everybody goes out of their way to help me!
Aug. 30. Exciting day… kinda. Received my huge box of stuff that I had shipped myself. It came to my school, so now I just have to find some way of getting it back to my apartment. Should be interesting. Also found out that my first enkai (like, teacher party… but this one is just with the people in my apartment building (8 of us)) is next week Tuesday. Exciting.
My game today in class completely bombed. Unfortunately I had planned something similar for tomorrow… so now I’ve got to come up with something quick.
Sept. 2. Another amazing weekend. My apartment smells vaguely like the dock back at the cabin. Strange.
Friday in Furukawa, same bar. This time with George and Greg. Have I mentioned George yet? He’s a Brit working in Takayama. Very cool guy. The bartender arranged for an all you can drink – all you can eat for 35 bucks night. It was amazing. The bar was packed with people, the chairs were all pushed to the side and it was standing room only. The next day we went for Thai food for lunch, then the 3 of us went back to my little town to explore. Greg had swimming on the brain, and we found a spectacular little beach very close to my place. Completely empty. Spent the rest of the afternoon there. Will and Amy joined us just as we were leaving. We had supper at the Eagle, which is a cool “British” pub /cocktail bar. Good pizza there. Then back to El Sol to end the night. Greg and George crashed at my place.
Sunday morning we were awoken to the lovely sound of alarms as the town had an earthquake drill. For breakfast we went to the local coffee shop. Good coffee. Picked up some bentos from the grocery store and spent the entire afternoon at the beach. Nobody else was ever there. Very relaxing. Oh, also may have found a car I want to buy… though its a little more than I wanted to spend…. its also a lot nicer than I thought I could get for my money. It’s a cool little blue Honda yellow plate. Might have to wait another month just to make the finances work….. but it would really make grocery shopping easier. And going to school. I could actually wake up half an hour later everyday….
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Knowing what to expect from the seasons
Thing I love most about Japan today: My beach!
Sept. 6. Its been awhile since I’ve written again… not that anyone really knows since I can’t post this online. I hope I’m getting the internet soon….
So, Monday I went to Keiko-san’s with Will again. Tuesday, I discovered that this whole week was early dismissal. I also found out that the next day would be the school’s sports festival. I have to remember to ask a lot of questions or these things completely take me off guard. There was no basketball practice on this particular Tuesday, so I got home early and cooked up at least 3 meals worth of stir fry. There just isn’t time to cook usually… and then I just end up toasting a frozen pizza. In the evening was my first enkai! It was an apartment enkai to welcome me to Kamioka. It was fun. One of the teachers and the school nurse are the same age as me… but neither speaks much English… I vowed again to keep studying my Japanese harder than ever.
So, Wednesday was the sports festival. Essentially this meant the classes were playing basketball, volleyball and soccer against each other. This is very different from the sports festivals I’ve heard about at other Japanese schools, where the students play a bunch of made-up sports. I mostly just watched and cheered for classes that I have and students on the basketball teams. But I also played a game of volleyball when the one team was a player short. I think I even played reasonably well considering how long its been since I last touched a volleyball. The nets were set to like junior girls height… there was a lot of blocking when I was in the front row. One student got down on his knees afterwards and thanked me with the full bow, like you do before the emperor kind of thing. Interesting. In the evening was another enkai, this one was for everyone at the school… I think about 14 of us went. Fun again. The after party (I believed its called a ni-kai (second party)) was at a karaoke place…. and I could not hit a note…. but nobody cared. Two songs by myself and one song with Kassai-sensei (Brainstew by Greenday!? It seems punk music is alive and well in Japan! I get questioned about Sum 41 all the time because I’m Canadian) Kassai-sensei wanted to “fat lip” by Sum 41 first… but the song could not be found… I’m always shocked at which English songs they have here.
I think you’re all caught up now… (if only I could post this somehow…) I think I might try e-mailing this to someone to post for me…. actually thats a pretty good idea…
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Canadian washing machines… and dryers.
Thing I love most about Japan today: Enkais
Sept. 10 I like melon cream soda. Every once in a while I find something that they do a lot better in Japan than in Canada, and this is one of those times. I just wish I could find more drink machines that carry it.
OK, back to events that matter. On Friday (Sept. 7), I was extra tired because I had worked extra hard at basketball practice the night before. So, when I decided to use my Japanese style toilet (maybe you should google that first so you know what I’m talking about) I was really sore and had to… “sit” a little differently… long story short, I nearly lost my balance, but I waved my arms and recovered…. but my finger nicked a pipe in my bathroom…. which proceeded to blow water into my face… thus causing me to fall backwards (not into the toilet though!) and making my attempt at keeping my balance useless anyways. And now I had a new problem. There was water shooting out of the pipe in front of my toilet. I woke up my neighbor, who is one of the English teachers at my school, and showed him the problem. By this time there was a pond forming in the lower side of the toilet room. Eventually we figured out which water valve was mine and managed to shut it off… but my my lower toilet floor now had a good 5 cm of water sitting on top of it. I used a yogurt container to dump what I could into the toilet before heading off to school. At the end of the day, the school custodian came with me to my apartment and took a look at it. We turned on the water… and the leak was gone! I finished drying up my toilet room…. but now every time I use it I wonder if that water is just going to start spraying me in the face again…
Friday evening was quiet. Will and I bought sushi at the grocery store and watched Butch Cassidy. All the windows in my apartment were of course open… because it all smelt vaguely of a giant toilet bowel. Fantastic.
Saturday morning I tried to figure out how to use my landline…. and it seems that it is impossible. I don’t know why… but it is. I can receive calls but not make them. Oh well… I just wanted it to get internet anyways. The afternoon was spent with Will, we wandered the town, ate some ice cream and crushed ice thingy… and went to a store called Komeri where I hoped to find an adapter to turn my Japanese style toilet into a Western one. Wasn’t there. I also hoped to find a softer futon. Also not there. But I did find a laundry basket and some more clothes hangers…. so it was a complete waste. In the evening I went to El Sol with Kassai-sensei, who I think I’ve mentioned before. He’s the same age as me, and the math teacher at my school. He knows a little English, and I know just enough Japanese to make our friendship possible, I think.
Sunday I went to my school’s baseball game. They won. They have aspirations to become the best in our prefecture, and to go the nation-wide tournament in Tokyo. Apparently they’re only a few important wins away from getting there. This is a really big deal because it’s the biggest sports event in Japan every year. After that, Kassai-sensei (who is one of the two coach’s for the baseball team) and I went to Toyama, which is a nearby big city. Really big, actually, it turns out. There I finally got my keitai (cellphone / mobile… whatever you want to call it), we went out for sushi and even to an onsen afterwards. This particular onsen had a “hot tub” where you kinda lay down and there were jets that massaged you. Very relaxing. And it feels good to have a keitai finally. I haven’t really tried it out to much yet because I was exhausted when I got home… but it seems it can do anything. It is a television, camera, video game system, credit card and phone rolled into one. I think its got more feature than that yet too…. I believe I can use it as a Japanese-English dictionary. Oh yeah, and the phone’s menus are in English… which is awesome.
Sept. 14. Things change in Canada while I’m in Japan. Today I was writing a short story to use for a listening exam. It was a short story about a guy visiting Toronto. I had a line written about how the CN tower is the tallest tower in the world… and decided to quickly double check it on the wikipedia. Turns out it no longer is “the tallest free standing structure in the world”, it is now #2! The shocking thing is that this only changed two days ago! As of Sept. 12, it is no longer the tallest! I’m not sure why this strikes me as being so strange… but it feels like Canada lost a battle while I’ve been gone.
Last night I talked to my parents for the first time since I left. I still have no idea how to call outside of Japan…
Umm… really nothing else new. I’m actually doing a lot of work today because I’m making the English exams for the classes I teach. Tonight, my English conversation group is having an enkai for me… that’s about it.
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Dryers.
Thing I love most about Japan today: My new keitai… it does everything!
Sept. 17 It was a long weekend in Japan. Friday was an enkai with my English conversation class. It was fun. For lunch on Saturday I finally went to the restaurant that Thomas went to everyday (apparently). It was really really good. The owner is really as nice as I’ve heard. She saw me shopping at the grocery store later that day and gave me a ride home because it started raining. Did I mention it’s the rainy season right now? It’s the less famous rainy season, as I heard one person describe it. It’s not really raining all that much, but it starts and stops all day long. In the evening I went to Toyama with one of the English teachers. We went out for udon and also to a book store. He wanted to pick up some essays or something… I picked up a book called Kokoro, which I’ve nearly finished now (I’m reading the English version). It’s apparently one of the most famous Japanese books ever. It really is an amazing book… I read it a lot on Sunday, outside on my balcony while it was raining. The words that best describe it so far are “beautifully depressing”. I also went to the Sunday basketball practice. I usually don’t because I consider weekends to be my own time, but this was the last practice until next week Friday (because of exams). Sunday evening I went to the yakitori bar near my apartment (it was raining). I met two of my neighbors there, again… very nice people. It was the mother and her daughter (age 25 and has a boyfriend… but also the most attractive woman I’ve seen since I’ve come to Japan!). We chatted and watched some judo on the television together. I have yet to meet someone in this country who didn’t go out of there way to be incredibly nice to me. Every once in a while I manage to have really good conversations with people using my limited Japanese… and it always leaves me feeling just plain awesome. Monday I wandered around town with my phone taking pictures, with the intention of putting up some pictures on the internet once I get it (on the 19th hopefully)! Will and I went back to the same restaurant again for supper. Again, delicious.
Oh, I also did a tonne of laundry… (no, wait it’s interesting!) and managed to “McGyver” my own dryer together. It involves a drying rack…thing, and a fan. Think you can figure it out? I’ll let your imagination come up with the rest.
For the first time in a while I don’t know what to expect at school tomorrow. No lesson plan has been written, my JTE just said that we’ll talk about exam preparation…
Now I’m going to go to bed… (wait, forget that… I mean, go to my hard-as-a-tatami-mat-futon) and finish Kokoro.
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Carrot cake… and Kit Kat cake. May as well get both of them out of the way at once. It’s actually a little shocking that it took until now to write that one.
Thing I love most about Japan today: My new favorite restaurant! (In Kamioka).
Sept. 20.
Time moves faster in Japan! I’ve been here for a month and a half now… soon it will be two. Nothing much of note happened in the last few days… except I got the internet yesterday! At least, I think I did. After school I had to help a kid with his English speech, followed by a quick supper and then an English conversation class… followed by a trip to El Sol with Will. So, everything I need to have the internet is apparently sitting in a box in my house right now… but I also am incredibly busy tonight (another enkai)… and I have plans to go out to Takayama for the weekend! So, hopefully I’ll be able to quickly set everything up and fire this journal out onto the internet before I leave… but if not… please forgive me. And thank you for waiting patiently!
Also of note is that I recommended Weezer’s Blue Album to a kid, and he found a copy somewhere and loves it. His favorite songs? Undone (the sweater song) and Buddy Holly. Keep listening kid, it only gets better with time! I wish I had my Wolfmother CD here to borrow out to kids…
Thing I miss most about Canada today: Time. Time to do things. Things that should be done!
Thing I love most about Japan today: CC Lemon. An amazing drink that (apparently) contains 50 lemons’ worth of Vitamin C in every can! I drink one everyday at lunch, and seriously believe that its keeping me healthy no matter how busy I get.
